Canada’s two largest government-owned corporations will no longer give employees or clients free tickets to professional sporting events.

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, who is responsible for both Via Rail and Canada Post, told the House of Commons on Wednesday that both Crown corporations will stop buying tickets to NHL games and other sporting events.

Ms. Raitt was asked about a report in the Ottawa Citizen that the railway, which receives about $300 million from the government every year, had spent $107,000 on season’s tickets for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball games, the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League, and the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens over the past two years.

Via had said the tickets were used for “business development and promotional activities” and as part of an employee-recognition program.

“Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely unacceptable that VIA Rail used taxpayer dollars in order to ensure that it had seats at various sporting events,” Ms. Raitt said. “This practice has stopped.”

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NDP MP Charlie Angus questioned Ms. Raitt on the purchase of 209 tickets for employees and customers to Canadiens’ home games last season, at a time when the post office is ending home delivery.

“Conservatives are telling senior citizens that they can walk through the snow for their mail because they need the exercise, and anyway Canada Post just cannot afford to deliver it,” Mr. Angus said. “However, Canada Post can afford to give out hundreds of pro hockey tickets to their insiders and pals.”

Ms. Raitt said Canada Post as well will no longer buy sports tickets.

There was no word from the government, however, on whether other federally owned corporations would continue to treat employees and clients to pro sports tickets.

The Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Canada both sent employees and clients to NHL games. EDC purchased a batch of tickets for Vancouver Canucks home games, with some of the tickets costing $233 each.

Although Crown-owned, EDC and BDC both make money and neither draws from parliamentary appropriations.

After Canada Post announced, by decree, that all home mail delivery in urban areas would be replaced by community mailboxes, some have marvelled at the continuing negative reaction of Montreal area mayors, including the writer and Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre. What sticks in our craw is not just the painfully evident lack of planning behind this decision, but the gnawing absence of public debate on a diktat issued by a state monopoly. Ten months after the announcement, things have not changed.

Serving up a blend of the usual communications cant and oxymoronic clichés, Canada Post said it is getting rid of home delivery “to better serve all its customers.” They went on to say they are committed to “delivering a positive customer experience,” but not actually delivering the mail. Yet their stated goal is “to offer customers the types of services they want and need.” Right. They’ve decided on what we need. Who cares what customers want when you’re a monopoly?

Today, roughly one-third of domestic mail is delivered to community boxes, one-third by door-to-door delivery, and one-third to places like apartment lobbies (which, in my book, amounts to home delivery). If all door-to-door delivery were scrapped, the savings would be based on only one-third of domestic customers. But if the frequency of delivery were reduced, the savings would be based on 100% of Canada Post’s domestic customers. Sure, senders of junk-mail would complain — but that is a plus. Why Canada Post rejected the idea of a reduction in delivery frequency and decided instead to wipe out home delivery to one-third of their customers makes no business sense. You might say it was a back-of-the-envelope decision.

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Then we had those who regarded us mayors as a gang of latter-day Luddites loath to accept technological change. They predict the letter carrier will go the way of the milkman. Hold on. Yes, the domestic refrigerator helped make the milkman obsolete; but there was no corporate monopoly in the dairy industry and the slow demise of home milk delivery was accomplished smoothly over decades. The comparison is even more imperfect: social media are not completely killing off postal delivery; in fact, online purchasing spurs package deliveries. And, while community boxes can indeed handle smaller parcels, many will turn to Purolator — owned by Canada Post! — to get the home parcel delivery they once had as, ah, a package deal.

And if you think that social media are to blame for postal service reductions and stamp price increases, think again. Canada Post made these customer-cutting strategies their specialty well before email was even invented. Now Canada Post wants to be the first postal service in the world to get rid of home delivery entirely.

The forced introduction of do-it-yourself mail delivery by a state monopoly is also retrograde ecologically. Rather than having one person walking door-to-door down a street delivering mail, you will have someone from each address possibly polluting their way to their community mailbox.

State monopolies have to be careful. Sixty years ago, the CBC TV network was also a monopoly. Realism eventually set in. One can still justify the postal service monopoly because it provides an essential service; but as that service diminishes, so does the justification. In fact, people looking for an argument in favour of ridding Canada Post of its monopoly have to look no further than the way it imperiously decided to end all home mail delivery over the next five years.

And if you feel that the basic policies of Crown corporations should be ultimately set by their government owners who are, in turn, answerable to the electors, perhaps the ballot box is the best way to send that message. Canada Post certainly isn’t listening.

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Peter F. Trent is mayor of the city of Westmount and president of the Association of Suburban Municipalities.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers plans to launch a legal challenge in Federal Court against a decision to end home mail delivery, which they say is a human rights violation.

Canada Post wants to phase out home delivery in an effort to cope with a revenue squeeze from falling mail volumes.

Paul Cavalluzzo, a Toronto lawyer representing the union, said he will likely file the application in the next week asking the court to stop Canada Post’s termination of home delivery. He said he will also consider an injunction to pause the transition from home delivery to community mailboxes until the court reviews the Canada Post decision.

The postal workers union said the Federal Court challenge, which has not yet been filed, will argue that doing away with home delivery is a decision for Parliament, not Canada Post.

Union president Denis Lemelin said the agency is too focused on the bottom line and is ignoring the needs of Canadians.

“The reaction was immediate from every part of this country,” Lemelin said. “People — seniors, people with disabilities, the general public — were against it and demand that the door-to-door delivery be maintained.”

The application will argue that the elimination of home delivery contravenes the section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that gives people the right to equality without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

The third argument Cavalluzzo will make in the federal court application is that the elimination of home delivery violates the United Nations’ convention on the rights of people with disabilities.

Cavalluzzo said when the crown corporation announced they would eliminate home delivery on Dec. 11, 2013, Canada became the first G8 country without it.

Wayne Cuddington / Postmedia NewsThe Canadian Union of Postal Workers plans to sue Canada Post over its decision to end door-to-door delivery.

Seniors’ groups and organizations for people with disabilities have joined the planned legal challenge.

The Conservatives are trying to distance themselves from the home delivery issue, the union said, adding the government should be held accountable for allowing the decision to be made without proper consultation or debate.

Canada Post said it is confident the plan to do away with home delivery “will withstand any and all legal scrutiny.”

“The decision to move away from door-to-door mail delivery for a third of Canadian households was difficult,” he said in an interview.

“We understand that two-thirds of Canadian households today don’t have delivery to the door. But we also understood that we needed to ensure as we make these changes, we were taking the approach and ensure that no one was left behind.”

It’s important to know your own strengths and weaknesses. And one thing I know about myself is that I’m not very good at paying my electronic bills.

Oh, they get paid eventually, and usually on time. But despite being in almost every other way a comfortable creature of the digital age — e-reading, Netflix, music downloads, online banking, even ordering pizzas online — I still find myself dropping the ball on electronic bills. They don’t stay top of mind the same way paper bills stuffed inside envelopes stacked on the kitchen counter do. Instead, they get buried under the hundreds of emails I receive every day. Paying annoying monthly “paper billing” fees is something I’ve learned to tolerate. I know myself too well to pretend that e-bills really work for me.

This all came to mind this week when I first heard about You Have Mail, a company that is seeking to fill the void left behind by Canada Post, as it begins phasing out door-to-door mail delivery in urban areas. Though it will take years to fully implement the withdrawal of the service, some areas — including Winnipeg, where You Have Mail is based — will lose it in a matter of weeks. For a relatively low fee, ranging from $20-$30 a month, customers of You Have Mail will continue to receive mail delivery right to their doors.

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The company neatly sidesteps Canada Post’s monopoly on letter mail by allowing it to do most of the work. Canada Post will deliver your mail to your community box, and You Have Mail will take it from your slot and deliver it right to your door. Not every day, though. Twenty bucks a month gets you delivery on Monday and Wednesday, according to news reports. Thirty a month gets you home delivery on Friday, too. For those like me, who still like getting some things in the mail, You Have Mail could be a preferable option to walking to a community mailbox to collect the bills.

I haven’t signed up just yet. My area still has home delivery for the foreseeable future, and I’ll want to know how convenient the local community mailbox will be before I make up my mind. If it’s right outside my house, I’ll probably stick with the community box. If it’s too far away to be convenient, though, I may well seek out a way to keep getting real, hard-copy bills delivered right to my house.

We’ll see. But the service You Have Mail is offering is one I’m amazed Canada Post didn’t simply decide to implement itself. I’d happily pay a modest fee to still have my mail stuffed through the slot in my side door, and wouldn’t mind a bit if it only happened twice a week, or even only once. At our last house, my wife or I would stroll down to the local community box every Friday, and pay the bills over the weekend. That was usually enough to purge the junk mail and keep the bill collectors at bay. I don’t see any reason to pay for more frequent delivery than that.

For Canada Post, it always seemed to be a binary decision: Home delivery would be offered until it wasn’t. End of story

But it’s nice to have the option, and surprising that it took this long for someone to offer it. There was never any real reason why continued home delivery for a reasonable fee wasn’t a viable option. Yet, for Canada Post, it always seemed to be a binary decision: Home delivery would be offered until it wasn’t. End of story (though there have been suggestions that some exemptions may be made for residents with disabilities that make a trip to a community box complicated or impossible).

Think about it. OK, so, the changing business environment makes continued door-to-door delivery along the previous lines unsustainable. Why not propose a new model before scrapping the whole thing? Paying a Canada Post employee to stuff letters in your door every day might get expensive, but once or twice a week would be enough for most people, and allow fewer delivery people to cover a much larger area.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to me who delivers the mail. Giving some money to You Have Mail or to Canada Post is all the same to me. If people really do value door-to-door delivery as much as they say they do, companies such as You Have Mail will no doubt be offering a very popular service. Pity Canada Post never thought to offer something akin to it itself.

If you’re waiting for a parcel, nothing is more annoying than seeing the Canada Post notice that says you missed the delivery.

Sometimes, though, it’s really rather hard to fault the postal worker who couldn’t get you your package. One good excuse might be that a bear was blocking the path to the door, as apparently happened to a Canada Post employee in Vancouver area this week.

Vancouver-area Twitter user Matthew Fane shared a photo of a Canada Post notice Tuesday that listed the reason for failing to deliver the package as “bear at door.”

We reached out to Fane for more details and have not heard back but he seems not to have minded the delay. He told Canada Post’s official twitter account there was no need to investigate and that “the service was great.”

The postal worker, by the way, was not in danger. “The notice was dropped at our mailbox up the street,” Fane explained.

Canada PostThe new community mailbox has been designed to accommodate a variety of parcels and online purchases.

Canada Post has unveiled a redesigned community mailbox made “for the changing needs of Canadians” — needs such as getting your mail after the postal service halts door-to-door delivery.

The 164-centimetre-tall unit has an extra-wide slot for outgoing mail, a sloped roof so rain and snow drains away from the compartment doors and a “new kind of secure lock.”

The new design has wider compartments aimed at accommodating the needs of Canada’s many online shoppers. The mailboxes can hold about half of all packages sent across the country, and each unit has two large compartments that can accept 80% of the parcels that are mailed, Canada Post said. Any package that requires a signature will still be delivered to the door.

“As more people began to communicate and manage their household bills online, lettermail volumes declined sharply. Yet as more people shopped online, parcel volumes shot up,” Canada Post said. “This dramatic shift is creating a pressing need to manage a greater number of parcels and less mail with more valuable items.”

More than half of Internet users (56%) ordered goods or services online in 2012, up from 51% in 2010, according to Statistics Canada. The value of orders placed online by Canadians reached $18.9 billion in 2012, up 24% from 2010.

Aaron Lynett / National PostCommunity mailboxes in Markham, Ontario. Planned changes at Canada Post would see all mail delivered to group mailboxes.

CCD wants Canada Post to reverse its decision to eliminate door-to-door service, and reduce the number of delivery days instead. But the group suggested that putting the mailboxes in drugstores, malls and other places that are sheltered from Canada’s harsh weather could make them easier to access.

The move from door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes will be rolled out over the next five years, starting in the second half of 2014, and affect about one-third of Canadian households. The change will not affect rural households.

Eleven centres will start collecting mail at community boxes this fall. It’s the first stage of a five-year plan announced in December and will involve about 100,000 addresses.

Canada Post says that in large cities during this phase, only a few neighbourhoods will be affected, and delivery will continue to businesses.

In the smaller municipalities, nearly all households and a higher proportion of businesses will move to community mailboxes. Residents affected by the change will get an information package in the mail shortly, according to Canada Post.

Canada Post says these neighbourhoods are near areas that already have community mailboxes, so the infrastructure is already in place.

In less than a decade, digital communication has eaten away at the core business of Canada Post, putting at risk a corporation that had survived 250 years of dramatic change. By 2012, we delivered one billion fewer pieces of mail than we did just six years earlier. Cost reductions across our operations in recent years have helped, but fundamental changes were required to avoid large financial losses. With that, and the changing postal needs of Canadians, we announced what is viewed as one of the boldest postal initiatives ever undertaken: Canada Post would be the first post office in the world to phase out door-to-door mail delivery. Even with compelling reasons supporting the move, it was not a decision taken lightly.

It’s the highest profile of the five initiatives contained in our plan to secure the future of Canada’s postal service. It’s the result of two years of analyzing all options, including those at post offices around the world, to determine what would work best for Canadians from coast-to-coast.

Since the announcement, some have come forward with other potential solutions, which at first glance may seem plausible, but unfortunately don’t hold up to scrutiny.

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One of those is postal banking, which Canada Post looked at years ago. We found the conditions underlying the success of postal banks in other countries — such as a strong history of postal banking, or providing a more secure option than traditional banks — aren’t present in Canada. Would Canadians take their money out of their secure, well-established financial institution and hand it over to a bank started from scratch by Canada Post? That’s an expensive side bet when your core business is losing money.

Beyond banking, some raise the fact that other post offices have pursued privatization. That’s not within our mandate, but it’s important to note that it has required the transferring of billions of dollars of their pension obligations, or other significant costs, to the public purse. Canadians have told us clearly that we have to do what’s necessary to avoid becoming a drain on taxpayers, and that’s our goal.

Canada is a vast and beautiful country with one of the lowest population densities in the industrial world. Serving 15 million addresses in every corner of the country is what we’re good at, but it means Canada Post has one of the highest cost structures of Western post offices. It’s also getting higher as the number of addresses continues to rise, while mail items per household fall.

Our challenges are unique. Canada Post cannot simply import a solution and expect it to work for us. That would be a huge mistake, especially when we already have an option where Canada is a world leader, with 30 years of experience to draw upon.

Community mailboxes first appeared in Canada in the 1980s and have stood the test of time for millions of Canadian households. Those who have them understand there are real advantages: they provide more security than an unlocked mailbox, include secure parcel lockers and ensure mail doesn’t pile up at your door if you aren’t home. They aren’t as close to the door, but they are close to the home. That’s also true for those who get delivery to an apartment lobby box or a rural mailbox, meaning 10 million households will see no change as part of our plan.

The reality is delivering mail to the door costs twice as much as delivering to a community mailbox. While the savings are significant for converting the remaining five million households, it’s about more than that. It will allow us to continue delivering mail every day, which businesses and many people still rely on. No post office in the industrialized world has successfully reduced the number of days of delivery for that very reason. As well, Canada Post can generate additional revenue when converted customers see the convenience of a parcel locker near their home and shop more online.

These are the services that Canada Post is protecting, and that community mailboxes and the other elements of our plan will help keep viable. The structural challenges we face are not insurmountable, they just need the right solutions — ones that are tried, tested and built for Canada.

OTTAWA — Eleven centres will start collecting mail at community boxes this fall as Canada Post begins its move to end door-to-door delivery.

It’s the first stage of a five-year plan announced in December and will involve about 100,000 addresses.

Canada Post says that in large cities during this phase, only a few neighbourhoods will be affected, and delivery will continue to businesses.

Ben Nelms/BloombergA Canada Post letter carrier delivers mail by foot to houses in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2013. Canada Post announced that it plans to end home delivery in urban areas over the next five years, part of a plan to restore its financial health. In addition, the Canadian mail will increase stamp prices and cut as many 8,000 jobs.

In the smaller municipalities, nearly all households and a higher proportion of businesses will move to community mailboxes.

Canada Post says these neighbourhoods are near areas that already have community mailboxes, so the infrastructure is already in place.

Residents affected by the change will get an information package in the mail shortly, Canada Post says.

The Crown Corporation will ask for feedback about the change for use as the program moves to other communities.

“Canada Post understands that some seniors and Canadians with disabilities may not be able to get to their community mailbox, and it is committed to ensuring that no one is left behind from accessing the mail service,” the release read. “As it transitions existing neighbourhoods like these, [Canada Post] may need to offer additional solutions for people with significant mobility challenges, who lack viable alternatives and would face unacceptable hardship.”

Critics had earlier decried the proposed mail changes as unfairly affecting the elderly and disabled.

The national mail service says rising costs and falling mail volumes have made it impossible to continue its traditional operations

It says only about one-third of Canadians are still getting home delivery.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-post-announces-11-centres-moving-to-community-mail-boxes-in-the-fall/feed/0stdSoon, eleven additional locations across Canada will be collecting their mail at delightful community mailboxes like this one in Markham, OntarioBen Nelms/BloombergChris Selley: Canada Post's dire straitshttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/chris-selley-canada-posts-dire-straits
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/chris-selley-canada-posts-dire-straits#commentsFri, 17 Jan 2014 05:01:37 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=141870

If Deepak Chopra is an excellent Chief Executive Officer for Canada Post, he is not as excellent at appearing as such in public. His claim that some Canadian senior citizens who currently enjoy door-to-door mail service actually envy the exercise their friends get traipsing to and from their local superboxes seems highly dubious. But even if it were true, someone in PR should have locked him in the executive bathroom until he promised not to say it. And over the holidays, in the aftermath of the southern Ontario ice storm, when the Crown Corporation found itself unable to perform its core function — i.e., delivering things to people — it didn’t tell anyone about it and Mr. Chopra was unavailable to explain it.

“We were so caught up in making sure that we got it right and to do it fast, we missed a very critical step and that was to communicate with those whose service was impacted,” Mr. Chopra finally said after days of silence.

If I were a fan of Canada Post, such a statement would fill me with dread. But I’m not a fan of Canada Post, and I actually have some bemused sympathy for Mr. Chopra. As discreditable as Canada Post’s silence was, in fact there is a very easy way to tell if you’re not receiving any mail. Just ask yourself: “Did I receive any mail?” If the answer is no, then you’re not receiving any mail. It’s not totally clear to me how confirmation from the corporation itself — Yes! You have not received any mail! — would have helped.

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Moreover, it is very difficult for a delivery company to deliver things when the people it employs to deliver things don’t show up to work. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers could have argued it was too icily treacherous for its members to be out and about. Instead it argued the corporation has too few casual workers on hand to compensate for mass absenteeism — which may well be true, but which hardly bolsters its members’ or the corporation’s moral claim to a monopoly on delivering our important bills and documents.

“My Quebec notary foolishly thought that Canada Post was the safest way to send key legal documents relating to my mother, who is in a hospital in Montreal,” one resident of Thornhill, Ont., where some didn’t get their mail for two weeks, told the Toronto Star. He and his notary have presumably learned a valuable lesson, and they’re not alone.

Star columnist Heather Mallick, who was nearly hysterical last month at the prospect of Canada Post cutting home delivery, seems now to have abandoned the company to the wolves. “I’ve onlined every bill I can,” she wrote this week. (She says she did so at the suggestion of a Canada Post customer service rep, whom Mr. Chopra is presumably trying to track down). “My payments for work in other countries have been direct-deposited to my bank. … I’m reading magazines online only.”

Well, there you go. Was that so hard? Having the means to be billed electronically, who would chooseto be billed on paper? Who would chooseto get a cheque as opposed to a direct deposit? Canada Post’s dire straits may be hastening these developments, but at least they’re positive developments.

There is no magic to Canada Post. There are other ways to deliver what things need delivering than to run a publicly owned corporation with lettermail monopoly. And you needn’t even look abroad to see it. The Globe and Mail recently sent its London correspondent, Mark MacKinnon, his press credentials for the Sochi Olympics via Canada Post. When he received them, he reported this week, he found the package had been opened and inspected by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

What’s Uncle Sam doing rooting around in Canadians’ mail, you might ask? Well, before Mr. MacKinnon’s documents took off for England, they took off for Memphis. Because Canada Post paid FedEx, a publicly traded company with a current market capitalization of $44-billion, to deliver it to England. There’s nothing wrong with that, commercially at least. It just goes to show: It’s a big world out there, and the mail isn’t what it used to be. It’s time to stop moaning about it and come up with something better suited to modern times.

The National Post re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. Today, Tristin Hopper looks at the week through the eyes of Canada Post CEO Deepak Chopra.

Monday
Here’s a hypothetical for you. Say you’ve got a piece of paper. Now imagine that you tell me to deliver that paper to a specific neighbourhood somewhere in the world’s second-largest land mass. Oh, and you tell me to use union labour. Say, $20-a-hour starting wage? Now, how much do you think this hypothetical “paper delivery service” would cost? $60? $50? Well, get this: It’s only $1 — cheaper than a can of coke. But what’s that, you say? You only want to pay 63 cents? OK … and instead of having the paper delivered to your neighbourhood, you want it delivered right to your front door? And you’re going to patronize this continent-spanning delivery service how often? Once a month? Twice? Huh … well I must say your demands all sound pretty reasonable. I’ll see what I can do, Canada.

Tuesday
I did not desire this ignominious retreat of mail service, of course. I, more than anyone, worked to head off this coming collapse through vigorous innovation. Just last May, I narrowly missed sealing a lucrative delivery contract with tech giant AOL to distribute their CD-ROMS, but it mysteriously fell through. My entreaties have similarly gone unanswered at Yellow Pages Group, Blockbuster Video, HMV and even Research In Motion. Things are tough all over, it seems. Truth be told, our only growth area has been hipsters ironically buying tacky stamps. Consequently, I’m expecting good sales for our 2014 series, Canoes of New Brunswick.

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Wednesday
As expected, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has announced they will ally themselves with the Canadian public and strike back against this undemocratic assault. Stirring words, to be sure, but I have a hunch this thing will fizzle out pretty soon. Don’t take this the wrong way, but people who are unwilling or unable to hobble down the block for their latest issue of Dogs in Canada are usually quite poor at organizing effective protest movements.

Thursday
This season, of course, is when Canadian children use Canada Post to mail letters to Santa Claus. They’re not really answered by Santa, of course, they’re answered by form letter. You might call that a ruse, but thousands of impressionable children don’t seem to care. Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret: we use a similar system to respond to people complaining about the decline of mail service. In beautiful calligraphy, we tell them that if they just wish hard enough, the mail service will return to its mid-century glory. Bustling, palatial post offices in every downtown. Gleaming red postal boxes on every street corner with three times daily delivery and — oh, looky there, here comes Mr. Postman up the front walkway with the latest Vera Lynn record!

Friday
As I do every Friday, I had my breakfast meeting with the Federal Modernization Committee, a working group of Crown corporations and government departments devoted to combating technological obsolescence. It’s a sorry bunch; VCR Canada, the Federal Bureau of Typewriter Certification, the Department of Mixtapes. Just looking at their sallow, grey faces today, something inside of me snapped. I mean, do you think I like this? Do you think I enjoy overseeing the dying gasps of one of Canada’s most storied institutions? Well, dammit, this afternoon I vowed that I would no longer sit back and let it die without a fight. I rushed back to my office, swept my desk of all the reports labelled “privatization” that keep piling up for some reason, and got to work on some REAL solutions for Canada’s postal future. Coffee service at postal counters? Commemorative plates? Geddy Lee-themed prepaid envelopes? So help me God, we’ll resurrect this crippled monopoly yet.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/deepak-chopra-dear-diary-commemorative-plates-or-geddy-lee-themed-envelopes/feed/1stdDeepak-ChopraToday's letters: 'A country that cannot feed its own people has no right to preach to others’http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-a-country-that-cannot-feed-its-own-people-has-no-right-to-preach-to-others
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-a-country-that-cannot-feed-its-own-people-has-no-right-to-preach-to-others#commentsFri, 20 Dec 2013 05:01:31 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=139811

Andrew Coyne quotes the federal minister of industry, James Moore, as saying: “Empowering families with more power and resources so that they can feed their own children is, I think, a good thing.”

The Minister may have been quoted out of context, but surely Mr. Coyne could point out that the Minister’s government has hardly been dedicated to this proposition. That’s the real point.

The philosophy and policy of this Conservative government has been to make it more difficult for poor families to feed their own children. More and more “middle class” families are also finding it difficult. Poor families find it impossible. Poverty is less a result of the inheritance of class than the inheritance of poverty. And too many Canadians have bought into the philosophy that if it’s not the government’s role to try to fix this “inheritance” thing by a more equitable social policy, then why should they?

Rabbi Arthur Bielfeld, Toronto.

Even with Andrew Coyne’s bent-over-backwards justification of James Moore’s comments, he missed some very important issues. The measurement used to determine poverty in Canada is far too low — and manipulated for political purposes. The country may have never been wealthier, but that wealth is going to a few at the top, who pay about 50% of the taxes that they used to 30 years ago. How are poor families feeding their children? With foodbanks and by going into debt. The provinces may be responsible for alleviating poverty, but they rely largely on federal transfers for funding this. This federal government takes no leadership in solving the problems of its citizens — unless they are connected with the corporate elite. So, Mr. Coyne, you too, are guilty of not presenting a balanced picture.

Patricia E. McGrail, Brampton, Ont.

Andrew Coyne’s comment on Mr. Moore’s gaffe regarding the feeding of Canadian kids fails to mention the disturbing fact that by election time 2015, the number of children living at or below the poverty line in Canada will be one million. And while he is right to say that feeding these poor children is a provincial responsibility, within that number there will be 400,000 First Nation children whose welfare rests squarely with the federal government. Where is the Harper government’s Policy on Poverty? A country that cannot feed its people has no right to preach civil and human rights to others.

I don’t think measuring a Canadian’s generosity by what we claim on our tax returns is an accurate measurement of our charity.

We give at the office. We drop change in the Salvation Army kettle and countless other charities without standing around waiting for a tax receipt. I have never claimed a charitable donation on my tax return though I have certainly made them.

Canada Post’s own Marie Antoinette — and his 20 vice-presidents

There are two ways to look at Canada Post CEO Deepak Chopra’s comment that the elderly will benefit from the termination of home mail delivery. The first is to see it as Mr. Chopra’s attempt to make lemonade out lemons by claiming that when one is forced to walk some distance to collect one’s mail (that’s the lemons), one will almost certainly become fitter and healthier (that’s the lemonade).

The other way to look at it is that Mr. Chopra is being awfully high-handed and dismissive of those whose infirmities are such that a daily hike to a mail box is a physical impossibility — not unlike an imperious Marie Antoinette advising the starving peasants to “eat cake.”

Considering that Mr. Chopra pulls in the big bucks in his capacity as the head of Canada Post, and has more than 20 vice-presidents serving under him, I’m inclined to start calling him Marie.

Mindy G. Alter, Toronto.

Deepak Chopra should stick to making financial arguments about stopping door-to-door delivery instead of the gratuitous remarks about the health benefit of “regular walks to the community mail boxes” — such walks may be risky for frail seniors. Besides, it is known that these community boxes are not as secure and subject to more theft.

I would rather pay the extra cost of door-to-door delivery than pay for a Canada-wide bilingual program that benefits francophones outside Quebec while restricting anglophones inside Quebec.

Jiti Khanna, Vancouver.

Let’s bring in direct democracy

In your page of letters to the editor about ways to improve our faltering democracy, no one talked about the only real way to do it – by permitting citizens to vote on issues, via referendums. Why not? This is done in some 20 U.S. states, New Zealand and Switzerland? Some systems permit citizens to propose issues upon which they would like a vote. The results have to be followed by the government. Is not that the real meaning of democracy — power of the people?

It is properly called direct democracy — and it works.

Dick Tafel, Corbeil, Ont.

Another option for first-degree killers

Letter-writer Ivor Williams seems overly concerned that sentencing first-degree murderers to a term of natural life behind bars would be “morally tantamount to a death sentence.” Since everyone dies, I guess you could say we are all facing a death sentence. As for putting sentencing in the hands of judges whom we must trust, many judges have lost that trust, resulting in Parliament passing minimum sentencing laws. However, I have a solution that should satisfy Mr. Williams. The sentence for first-degree murder would be 75 years with eligibility for parole after 60 years. Would that do?

Roy Shaver, Wasaga Beach, Ont.

Exotic brew

I love that the Letters page allows people such as letter-writer Simon Dermer to expound on an arcane subject like Black Ivory Coffee (which is “ground from beans that are first eaten and digested by elephants, [then] are harvested from a ‘deposit’ ”). I hope the elephant driver who discovered this exotic brew gets royalties.

Arnold W. Hoskyn, Abbotsford, B.C.

The Inuglak Whalers deserve to win

With so much bad news in your paper recently, I was simply overjoyed to read about the Inuglak Whalers hockey team in Whale Cove, Nunavut, who raised $22,000 for a trip to play hockey with pen pals in Geraldton, Ont. It actually warmed the cockles of my heart to hear that so many people felt strongly enough that these boys should reap the benefits of their hard work. Teacher Andy Mcfarlane should be commended for his dedication to these young boys. What an experience for them and, if they don’t win, they will still have the memories — but I hope they win.

S. Fruitman, St. Catharines, Ont.

‘It takes courage to ask for euthanasia’

The letter from Eli Honing doesn’t give readers the true story of the twins and their decision to ask for euthanasia in Belgium. Both men were 45 years old, deaf and with the emerging blindness. One had a severely deformed spine and had also undergone heart surgery. One of the brothers had to sleep sitting upright as he had breathing problems.

The two of them, strong Catholics, trudged from one disease to another. They were really worn out. It takes a lot of courage to ask for euthanasia.

Hans Bleeker, Breda, the Netherlands.

The deafblind can still enjoy life

While I fully sympathize with deaf persons facing blindness, I wish to point out to letter-writer Daniel Berry that there is life after a person becomes both deaf and blind. I spent several years working with deafblind individuals, some who were deafblind from birth, helping them to live as independently as possible. By no stretch of the imagination could one consider these deafblind young men and women to be in “solitary confinement.” Deafblind Ontario Services (where I worked some years ago) does admirable work in this field.

Edward Abela, Markham, Ont.

Don’t sell our embassies

I agree with John Ivison that beating up our diplomats in foreign embassies has no political costs. But it is an odd approach for a country that lives off trade and a government whose only real specific achievement, by its own admission, is a trade agreement. And when they propose selling off embassies, the Conservative government is not reporting the true costs, as the savings they claim do not include the operating expenses for rented venues after the sales are made.

There is also a soft power in having our international representatives work in locations that provide continuity and have stature.

A better fiscal solution would be to explore the taxation potential that exists amongst the 2.8 million expatriate Canadians, many who declare off-shore tax residence, who use our commercial and consular services. The Conservatives should reverse their own decision to cut in half the visa-processing fee for immigration for political purposes. The loss of proceeds exceeds each year the gains from selling off Canada’s international assets.

John Gruetzner, Creemore, Ont.

Christmas encompasses all religions

Kudos to the Humber College teacher who thought of inviting international students to a Christmas party. I love Christmas, but I have never thought of it as an especially religious holiday.The story of Jesus doesn’t really describe what I, and many people I know, think of as the Christmas holiday we love to celebrate.

First, as someone recently pointed out in a letter to the Post, the trees from the forests of medieval Germany, looking much like our Canadian Shield evergreens, were originally a pagan symbol. Apparently, the fact that they were still green at the coldest, darkest time of the year gave hope to people. Rather Canadian, I’d say.

The Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ classic story, can still be seen on a number of Canadian stages every December. Caring for children and the less fortunate also formed part of the lessons Ebenezer Scrooge learned on Christmas Eve. However, these lessons were brought to Scrooge by three ghosts. Do ghosts represent a religion?

Finally, a major part of our Canadian Christmas celebration originated in North America, when, in 1823, Clement Moore, in a town in New York state, published a poem that contained the lines, “On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen……”

Have a great Christmas holiday, whatever you believe in.

Ruth Cameron, Toronto.

Surprise, surprise, the students at this party at Humber College in Toronto (“mostly foreign students in their 20s from India, Nigeria and Vietnam”) aren’t really offended by Christmas. That is because the whole concept of people being offended by Christmas is a Liberal construct, having more to do with their own perceived sanctimony rather than any real world evidence. My Sikh and other Asian neighbours have always participated in the season, just as we participate in Diwali, no offence intended or taken.

It isn’t every day that a public corporation like Canada Post announces plans to drastically reduce services, raise prices and eliminate roughly 8,000 jobs. But apparently Canada Post had no choice. The post office is a money-losing enterprise, beset by declining mail volume and, as both the Crown Corporation and the minister responsible, Lisa Raitt, have said, these changes were necessary to avoid the post office becoming a drain on the taxpayer. After all, even if door-to-door service is an indispensable need for the elderly and the disabled, the taxpayer is overburdened and can simply no longer afford to subsidize a public post office.

Stephen Harper and his government have always been clear on their desire to reduce the size and scope of public agencies, so it should come as no surprise that their “common sense” proposal is to gut the post office, driving it into the ground with service cuts and cost increases until it can be either eliminated or privatized. But was it called for here? Was Canada Post truly that badly off?

Canada Post has recorded a profit in 17 of the last 18 years, and in 2010 recorded a record high profit of $443-million. The one year it failed to record a profit was 2011. In that year it was strikes and a lockout, the loss of a court case related to pay equity and a recalculation of its pension plan’s liabilities, not declining mail volume, which led to the loss. Since then costs are down and sales are up. Far from being publicly subsidized, Canada Post is a profitable corporation which has returned over $1.5-billion to the taxpayer in the past decade alone. As for a decline in mail volume, it requires adaptation, but as any first-year business student will tell you, you can turn a profit at any volume.

Indeed, it’s worth recalling that in 2011 mail delivery was a service so essential that it required back-to-work legislation to end a lockout. What changed between then and now to leave the service so little valued that we would be well served by its elimination? I pity the Conservative MPs and spokespeople who have to pretend those two positions are logically consistent. Likewise, I recall a throne speech delivered mere weeks ago which promised to make life better for consumers. Reducing services and raising costs, all without saving the taxpayer a penny, is few people’s idea of a consumer-friendly measure.

Related

That said, the landscape is undeniably changing, not only for Canada Post but for public post offices everywhere. That’s why it’s instructive to look at how other countries have met this challenge.

For instance, there has been an explosion of parcel mail, related to the burgeoning online shopping sector. This will only increase as more consumers shift their purchasing habits online. It isn’t enough to replace lettermail, but it doesn’t have to be. Canada Post should be aggressively partnering with online retailers and making itself an indispensable part of the retail equation as post offices in other countries have done.

Another concept, so foreign to the North American context that it sounds a little looney, is postal banks. They are the norm in most other industrialized countries and there are a variety of models available, from partnerships with existing banks to chartered and non-chartered banks wholly owned by the post office. Canada had a postal bank for over 100 years, which was scrapped under pressure from the banking lobby in 1968. In all cases postal banks make huge profits, charge low fees and improve accessibility. In Italy, Switzerland and New Zealand, for example, their postal banks bring in roughly 70% of the post office’s revenue, cross-subsidizing the mail delivery operation. The largest bank in the world is Japan’s Post Bank.

If Canada were to start a postal bank tomorrow, it would instantly become the most accessible bank in the country, with more outlets than all other banks combined. In roughly 2,000 small communities which have a post office but no bank branch, it would revolutionize access to financial services, as it would for Canada’s notoriously underserved First Nations population. A postal bank would provide a simple alternative for the low-income Canadians who are increasingly turning to fringe financial institutions and their usurious interest rates (which can run as high as 800% APR).

A 2010 study by Vision Critical found that bank fees in Canada were among the highest in the world. Many observers attribute this to a lack of competition from a postal alternative. A May 2013 study done by Strategic Communications found nearly two-thirds of Canadians supported an expansion into financial services for Canada Post.

There are many options available that would keep Canada Post a profitable public corporation which provides essential services to Canadians. Too bad then that our government is more concerned with their ideological agenda than what is best for the public.

National Post

Ethan Cox is a journalist and political commentator based in Montreal.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/ethan-cox-how-to-save-canada-post/feed/0stdpost.jpgToday's letters: The mail was once picked up three times a dayhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-the-mail-was-once-picked-up-three-times-a-day
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-the-mail-was-once-picked-up-three-times-a-day#commentsSat, 14 Dec 2013 05:02:05 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=139265

The 1926 photograph accompanying Chris Selley’s comments on the future of our postal service was very revealing. Despite the caption error (the postman pictured was a Royal Mail employee, not a Canada Post worker), the collection times shown on the “letters” box are precise in stating their that their daily collections are at 8.45 am, 2.05 pm and 8.40 pm, with the single Sunday collection time to be at 4.30 pm.

Such a confident statement of precise collection times bodes well for earning the confidence of the letter-writing public, as also does the postal worker’s neatly dressed appearance. That simple photograph tends to modestly denote the high degree of normal, important, and expected government efficiency of that era.

Normally I enjoy Andrew Coyne’s rapier wit, but I see one feature of the Canada Post bashing being missed by all of the commentary I’ve read about the pending cuts to door-to-door service: Canada Post is obligated by legislation to serve every person in Canada with reasonable access to postal services — commercial competitors are not.

It would cost me $16.55 to ship a 50 gram letter from St. John’s to Vancouver by FedEx, (as long as I’m willing to wait five to nine days). That same letter to Elbow, Saskatchewan would cost $29.97, (and take 10 days). By comparison, the four-to-five day letter for even the increased fee of $1 seems quite reasonable to me. Open the doors to competition by all means — just ensure they are all playing on the same field.

Mike Goostrey, Guelph, Ont.

The stamp of irony

Oh the irony. Minister of Transport Lisa Raitt supports Canada Post’s plans to phase out home delivery in urban areas. The very next day, we received a Christmas card from Halton MP Lisa Riatt. No postage paid, of course.

Peter Thoem, Burlington, Ont.

In sufficient numbers, concerned Canadians could lift some of the financial burden from Canada Post. Faced with loss of privacy, resulting from the federal government’s anti-bullying legislation, with its provision for disclosure of subscriber information by Internet providers, they could revert to the time-honoured, secure alternative: regular mail. The LP made a comeback. Why not the lick-sealed letter?

Cam Christie, Cobourg, Ont.

Unions could learn from hogs

Viewed through the lens of the history of labour unions, public sector unions are a strange entity. Unions were formed to protect workers from being treated like collateral damage, with health and safety issues forming the reason for their existence. So when you work in a cushy office with air conditioning and heat and all the comforts of home, one must ask why the hell these people need a union. After reviewing the benefits these entitled people enjoy that the private sector doesn’t, I have come to the conclusion that this is about who gets to be a fat cat and who does not. To use another animal analogy; pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. Don’t be a hog.

Karen Turner, Mission, B.C.

Military PTSD caseload hardly a surprise

I joined the Canadian Forces in March 1983. In 2012-2013, I was attach posted to the to Joint Personnel Support Unit/Integrated Personnel Support Centre in Edmonton for one year. The building I had to work in was a dump. I had better digs in war-torn countries than this structure. A duplicate “sister” building was located across the street, which housed the senior officers and base lawyers. They got a multi-million dollar upgrade to their building, windows, new heat and air conditioning systems and exterior repairs.

When the Veterans Affairs Minister came to visit his staff at the small detachment located there, he was very upset with the conditions and what the military provided to enlisted men and support staff.

The Canadian Forces continues to tell the public and media what a big priority they are putting on the health and welfare of the ill and Injured. You would never know it from this dump I had to work in.

I retired in August 2013 with my full pension, and not a day too soon. I was getting nauseous seeing the numbers of PTSD, medical and 3B Releases of great soldiers going out the door. We have been at Operational Tempo since the early 1990s when we went into former Yugoslavia, almost two and a half decades of to-go-to. I knew the time would come when the merry-go-round stopped, that everybody would start to come forward, eventually.

Kelly N. Carter, Master Corporal (ret’d), Calgary.

Funding is a problem for First Nations

There’s nothing in the new Fraser Institute report to justify the headline “Federal funding not a problem for First Nations.” The underfunding of services in First Nations communities has been documented by numerous credible sources including the Auditor-General. The Fraser Institute’s claims to the contrary don’t stand up to scrutiny.

The report compares federal spending on services to First Nations with federal spending on services to all Canadians. As your article noted, the proper comparison would include funding from all levels of government, since its only First Nations that receive services primarily through federal funding.

Report author Mark Milke suggests that underfunding of First Nations services would not be a problem if First Nations people abandoned their territories to access the services available in predominantly non-aboriginal communities. Clearly, the higher cost of delivering services to small and remote communities compounds the problem of underfunding. However, it would be profoundly discriminatory to force First Nations people to give up living in their own territories — the only place they can exercise many of the aboriginal rights protected under treaties and the Canadian Constitution — to gain equal access to services that others take for granted.

Canada Post’s miserable management, sustained losses, proposed price hikes and stoppage of home delivery are outrageous. What’s equally outrageous is the federal government’s support of such conduct. The Transport Minister says that fewer Canadians are sending letters and parcels via Canada Post. Well, maybe it’s because the service leaves soooo much to be desired.

It’s time to fire the entire management of Canada Post, and shut down its union. Given the mantra of Canadian government is “Peace, order and good government,” the third leg of that stool is not holding up too well. The Canadian consumers’ mantra is “Bitch a bit and then meekly acquiesce.” With that combination, an incompetent Canada Post has a free hand and an open road ahead.

F.H. Rolf Seringhaus, Kitchener, Ont.

In the 1970s, at the outset of a 42-day postal strike, CUPW union leader Joe Davidson reportedly said “to hell with the public” when asked about how a postal strike would affect citizens. In 2013, we are again faced with outrageous cost increases coupled with declining service.

May the day soon arrive when we in turn can say, “To hell with CUPW.”

Brian Summers, Richmond B.C.

Two blind Canadians split on superboxes

Chris Selley as usual hits the bull’s-eye. In two of our last four homes, including our current one, I have had to rely on a superbox for my mail. I am a senior and I am blind. I prefer the centralized mailbox for two reasons: I can mail a letter without going to the post office and I’m helping reduce Canada Post’s tax-based subsidy. I would also welcome two-day a week delivery.

Jim Sanders, Guelph, Ont.

I am concerned about getting mail through a superbox, because what will happen when the CNIB sends braille books to the blind/visually impaired? People with disabilities will also have trouble getting to the superboxes. It seems Canada Post hasn’t considered any of this.

Jerry Pryde, Stoney Creek, Ont.

Privatize the mail

Most of would probably agree that if Canada Post is ending home delivery, we should give the private sector a shot at doing the same thing. One idea worth looking at is to reduce basic mail delivery to twice a week. There would be substantial savings in such a move, and the majority of us would never know the difference.

Jeff Spooner, Kinburn, Ont.

Thank you, Chris Selley, for reminding readers that two-thirds of Canadians already do not receive mail delivery to their homes.

Mac Savage, Surrey, B.C.

… or maybe not

Open mail delivery to competition? It sounds like a great idea, but I foresee problems. Like most condo dwellers, I get my letters and small packets from a set of boxes in my building’s lobby. Only I can open my box. And only Canada Post’s authorized carriers can open the room behind the boxes, where the mail is sorted and filed into the boxes.

But how can we open this system to competition? Will several companies have access to the boxes? If so, who decides what companies deserve keys? And if one company happens to hire a dishonest employee who takes a fancy to an item that another company has put in my box and he filches it, what is my redress?

Competition is good in principle, but some services still seem to be natural monopolies. Delivering letters and small packets to grouped mail boxes seems to be one of them.

William Cooke, Toronto.

Give Canada Post all of CBC’s funding

It would seem that both the CBC and Canada Post are in monetary difficulties. Here’s my solution: close the CBC and give the money to Canada Post. At least I’d get my mail, which is worth a lot more to me than hearing endless left-wing political bleating.

Larry Tate, Napanee, Ont.

Canada Post and CBC have a lot in common. They both share a similar mandate, and both are destined to fail.

Canada Post owns vast real estate holdings across the country. Why not sell that first? Perhaps both should have been allowed to become more competitive, with Canada Post competing in other areas such as cable, Internet and cellphone services.

But that will never happen — that light bulb should have illuminated years ago.

James Hall , Guelph, Ont.

Many small businesses can’t absorb a postal rate hike

As the director of an affordable art subscription that relies on the postal system to deliver a monthly product to our customers, I was crushed to hear that Canada Post is phasing out home delivery. I have spent the last five years building a business whose sole purpose is to share the work of Canadian artists with the world, at a price that most people can afford. It has been successful — to date I have mailed over 20,000 art prints featuring work by over 80 artists and writers to people around the world. Because we are subscription-based, we are totally reliant on the postal system.

We just had our best month ever and sold a record number of subscriptions. It should be a time to celebrate, but news of an imminent and massive rate hike is crippling. We operate with an extremely small profit margin and with the current proposed postal rate hike, I’m not sure we’ll even be able to continue. I

This decision will be absolutely crippling to small press and artist communities, and to any small business that relies on online sales. I was under the impression that online business is booming, so why has Canada Post allowed private delivery firms to dominate that market?

Kirsten McCrea, director, Papirmass Art Subscription, Toronto.

There should be one law for all of us

The Ontario government and Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) should feel disgraced by this unacceptable state of affairs. To allow any group of individuals to ignore the law and terrorize innocent people is a travesty in what we consider to be a civilized society. This group gleefully accepts my tax dollars but what does it give back to us? Nothing but aggravation. This has to stop. The government and police have a duty to do what it has been elected/paid to do — end this farce.

Tom Singer, Burlington, Ont.

While spreading blame evenly like a perfectly woven piece of silk, Christie Blatchford has passionately outed the Calendonia, Ont., protagonists, be it the Hamilton Police, OPP and all provincial parties. All groups have failed in their mandated duties to address, once again, the atrocities involving Calendonia and the Six Nations reserve.

Frank Mucci , Vineland, Ont.

‘The Armed Forces is not a social services agency’

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is not a social services agency. It is neither qualified and equipped to deal with issues surrounding post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is neither a criticism nor an excuse, just an observation.

Dealing with the psychological scares in the aftermath of an armed conflict has never been easy. The majority of Canada’s veterans from the Second World War and Korea frequently suffered in silence, having never sought treatment for their demons. Yet the overwhelming majority of them got jobs, raised families and lead productive lives after their demobilization.

I would suggest that Mr. Ivison take the time to get out of the Ottawa bubble and actually visit and speak to CAF veterans currently serving in CFB Wainwright or Gagetown, or a reservist veteran of the Bosnia conflict. This trip might provide him with a more balanced outlook of the CAF. It might also help him understand the difficulty in trying to treat of the veterans of Canada’s overseas deployments within an institution which is designed to fight Canada’s wars.”

Curt Shalapata, Oshawa, Ont.

Don’t mess with these brothers

The current holder of the World Boxing Council (WBC) version of the Heavyweight Championship of the world is Vatali Klitschko. He is 42 years old and was featured in Wednesday’s National Post concerning his involvement in the present troubles in the Ukraine. His brother Wladimir Kllitschko, age 37, is recognized as the Heavyweight Champion of the world by the other 4 so called boxing authorities, the WBA, IBF, WBO, and IBO and by Ring Magazine. They refuse to box each other to find one universal recognized champion.

Charles Patrick O’Neill, Ottawa.

Transit math does not add up

Can someone explain the core rationale for drivers who do not use public transit — and who pay more than the cost of the roads they do use — to pay even more for people who do use public transit, which is already heavily subsidized? Let’s imagine that public policy was wildly successful and forced all drivers on to public transit. Therefore a huge increase in transit users and attendant costs, but a huge reduction in gas tax. Is that where we’re headed?

Ron Freedman, Toronto.

Abortion truths

Barbara Kay cites a “study of studies” confirming raised risk of breast cancer for Chinese women with prior induced abortions. The epidemic of breast cancer in China’s cities is a phenomenon of the last three decades. China’s One-Child-Policy is enforced via coerced abortions. In 2009, gutsy Chinese researchers, working for the Chinese government and led by Dr. Lei Fan, spilled the beans as to the main cause of China’s breast cancer escalation:

“We speculate that fundamental changes in reproductive patterns brought about by China’s one-child policy probably contributed most to the incidence boom [in breast cancer] in the middle-age group,” they said. That study appeared in the journal Breast Cancer Research & Treatment.

This statement was validated by the November 2013 “study of studies” by Dr. Huang, et al. in the medical journal Cancer Causes, and Control.

Brent Rooney, Vancouver.

Barbara Kay states: “North American rates of breast cancer are the highest in the world.” Wrong. According to the World Cancer Research Fund International the highest rate of breast cancer per 100,000 is in Belgium. Denmark, The Netherlands and France are second, third and fourth respectively. Canada is #14 the US is #19, Mexico doesn’t make the top 20.

George Klein, Toronto.

Be careful with adjectives

This story refers to the “right wing” Fraser Institute in commenting on the institute’s study of economic freedom in Canada and the United States. I also note that mainstream Canadian media reportage on organizations such as the Rideau Institute, Pembina Institute, Suzuki Foundation or Greenpeace almost never identifies them as “left wing,” which they manifestly are.

Your stories shoud clearly state the political bias of all institutes, think-tanks and foundations, not just those at the conservative end of the spectrum.

OTTAWA — Canada Post president and CEO Deepak Chopra is a board member of the organization that highlighted the financial plight facing the Crown corporation and suggested eliminating door-to-door delivery as a way for it to save money.

In announcing Wednesday a five-point restructuring plan that includes ending door-to-door residential mail delivery in urban areas, Canada Post repeatedly pointed to a Conference Board of Canada report released last spring that documented challenges facing the postal service. That same report included options such as eliminating door-to-door service for urban residential households and increasing postal prices as ways to cut costs and improve the bottom line — options the Crown corporation has now adopted.

Chopra is a member of the board of directors of the Conference Board of Canada.

Related

Canada Post officials said Wednesday there is no conflict of interest in Chopra sitting on the board of an organization that appears to have heavily influenced the decisions of the Crown corporation he also heads.

The postal service conducted its own consultations and crafted its own plan, spokesman Jon Hamilton said.

“First and foremost, all (the Conference Board) did was lay out some options and they talked about the size of the problem, none of which came as any surprise to anybody because the amount of mail in the system has been in decline,” Hamilton said.

x

“There’s nothing new, but it got people’s attention and we used that as an opportunity to say, ‘OK, you haven’t thought about postal service for a long time, but you are now, what do you need?’ We built our own plan based on that.”

Chopra is also paid the highest salary range among so-called governor-in-council cabinet appointments, with potential earnings of more than half a million dollars a year as Canada Post CEO. Chopra is paid at the CEO 8 level, meaning he receives between $440,900 and $518,600 a year in salary to head an organization that has nearly two dozen presidents and vice-presidents.

His salary range has been bumped up from the $422,500-to-$497,100 range for his job when he was appointed for a five-year term effective Feb. 1, 2011, according to the cabinet order that appointed him.

Along with Chopra as president and CEO, Canada Post has two “group presidents,” seven senior vice-presidents and 12 vice-presidents, according to the management team listed on the Crown corporation’s website.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-post-ceo-deepak-chopra-is-a-board-member-of-the-think-tank-that-urged-mail-changes/feed/16stdCanada Post president and CEO Deepak Chopra, shown in a 2012 file photo, is a board member of the organization that highlighted the financial plight facing the Crown corporation and suggested eliminating door-to-door delivery as a way for it to save moneyChris Selley: A very Canadian calamityhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/chris-selley-a-very-canadian-calamity
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/chris-selley-a-very-canadian-calamity#commentsThu, 12 Dec 2013 05:01:29 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=139011

As calamities go, it’s a very Canadian one: The 33% of us who receive mail at the doorstep will soon have to collect it from some kind of central location, just as the other 67% of us already do. Woe and infamy betide us.

“This decision will disproportionately affect the elderly and Canadians living with disabilities, for whom home delivery of letters and parcels provides a critical link,” said Elizabeth May, neglecting to mention that two-thirds of Canadians somehow already live without that “critical link.”

“Harper’s Conservatives can find millions to keep his well-connected friends in the Senate but he can’t find a way to keep mail coming to your door,” the NDP’s Olivia Chow brayed at the urban third of us. “These short-sighted service cuts will have the biggest impact on seniors and persons with disabilities.”

The fevered reaction on Wednesday was partly the result of a largely urban press corps. But I think it’s also symptomatic of a national trait: We don’t just pathologically distrust change; we cling to each successive status quo as if God himself had chiselled it into a stone tablet.

The mail changes. That’s not new. While my mother was growing up outside a small town in southwestern Ontario, her address cycled through everything from door-to-door delivery to a roadside mailbox to a superbox. Meanwhile the people in the town proper had to go to the post office, just as they have done for decades in scores of small towns across Canada without incident.

All in all, Canadians’ conservative nature is probably for the good. But good lord, we do go on about things.

Remember the penny? Stupid little copper-looking thing, worth one one-hundredth of a dollar, cost considerably more than that to produce? “This situation is … becoming more and more serious. On the 1-cent coin alone we are losing about $6-million a year,” the master of the Royal Canadian Mint, Yvon Garlepy, implored reporters in Winnipeg … in 1978. Only three-and-a-half decades of economic analysis, Senate reports and point-counterpoint features later did we finally get rid of the damn thing and … poof! In a month it was like it never existed.

Remember the Wheat Board? Its monopoly was nothing less than a cornerstone of the Canadian economy, the Liberals and New Democrats insisted. It’s a wonder we survived the seven decades after Confederation we took to get around to founding it.

“By destroying the CWB, this government is telling Canadians it does not care how many small farms suffer and how many small farmers and small town economies are hurt in their ideological obsession,” Liberal agriculture critic Frank Valeriote stormed in 2011.

A new dustbowl awaited. But then Bill C-18 passed and … poof! No doubt it’s still a hot topic on the prairies, but among the political and chattering classes it’s a dead letter.

This is the same phenomenon we saw, writ much larger, with the long-gun registry — at best a modest crime-solving tool miscast by its proponents as the last line of defence against mass femicide.

“The gun registry saves lives. They are eliminating it,” Justin Trudeau intoned before the Conservatives got rid of it. After they got rid of it — poof! — he called it a failure and said he wouldn’t try to resuscitate it.

In 2012 Canada Post delivered 4.6 billion pieces of advertising — a great whack of which would have gone straight into the recycling bin. Is that really an appropriate business model for a Crown Corporation?

It makes you wonder, and we should wonder: What else are we clinging to for no good reason? For decades it was received wisdom that politicians had to support the asbestos industry or face hellfire on the election trail in Quebec. It fell to the nationalist Parti Québécois, of all parties, to finally pull the plug. Poof! Gone. We should ask: Might chipping away at supply management in the dairy industry not, in fact, be a one-way ticket to political oblivion?

There is nothing to cheer about thousands of Canada Post employees losing their jobs. But there is something to cheer about revolutionizing Canada Post’s business model. In 2012, Canada Post delivered 4.3 billion letters — down 6.4% from the year before. That’s a business problem, but surely not a societal one. To the extent Canadians can transact business online or by telephone, who on Earth would argue they shouldn’t? Surely not Elizabeth May.

And in order to keep its head above water, in 2012 Canada Post delivered 4.6 billion pieces of advertising — a great whack of which would have gone straight into the recycling bin. Is that really an appropriate business model for a Crown Corporation? The status quo is dying, and there’s nothing we can do or should even want to do about it. For once, let’s focus on the positives.

The key to understanding Canada Post’s latest strategic masterstroke — henceforth, the post office will charge you nearly twice as much to deliver a letter half the way — is to understand the logic of monopoly. Only in a world entirely insulated from competitive reality would the appropriate response to declining demand be … higher prices and worse service.

But then, this has been the post office’s strategy all along. For the last forty-odd years Canada Post’s business plan has amounted to charging more and more for less and less. Long before email or electronic funds transfer or any of the other things the corporation blames for its woes, the post office was using the brief intervals between strikes to cut service. First Saturday deliveries were discontinued. Then next-day service became day-after-next, redefining at a stroke a half-billion late letters every year as “on time.”

At length home delivery was discontinued altogether on rural routes in favour of community mailboxes — an innovation to which urban customers are now to be introduced. The price of a stamp, meanwhile, is to jump to a dollar — two and a half times, after inflation, what it cost in 1981, when it still made house calls. The day is not far off when, for $5, the post office will refuse to deliver your letter at all. Such is the logic of monopoly.

And yet all the while it was withdrawing service from wider and wider swaths of the country the corporation was insisting on maintaining its “exclusive privilege” in first-class mail — under the Canada Post Corporation Act, it is illegal for anyone but the post office to deliver a letter for less than three times the price of a stamp — on the grounds that it would otherwise be unable to provide universal service.

As loopy as that sounds, it still has its adherents. That, too, is the logic of monopoly: the less the service, the more attached people become to what remains. Already rural customers are lecturing their urban cousins on the delights of community mailboxes. (“You get to meet your neighbours!”) For without anything to compare it to, people cannot imagine how it could be better — though they are easily persuaded it could be worse.

Hence the political debate now shaping up, between the Conservatives, who support the cuts based on the need to “protect the taxpayer” — Canada Post has parlayed its statutory monopoly into projected losses of near $1-billion — while the opposition demands that they be reversed, in the name of protecting consumers. The possibility that the interests of both might be served does not seem to occur to either, because neither can conceive of a world outside the monopoly: a world in which anyone other than Canada Post is allowed to carry the mail.

But that alternative must surely now be inescapable. The question before us is not whether to “save home delivery” or “save Canada Post.” That is a false choice, which only the logic of monopoly forces upon us. Step outside its confines, and the question is “who can offer the best service to postal users at the lowest cost?”. To which the answer is: open it up to competition and let’s see.

Indeed, step outside Canada, and you find that is increasingly the norm. Across Europe, under the aegis of the single-market directive, the old state postal monopolies are being cracked open, following the example set earlier by New Zealand. Once staid utilities like Deutsche Post have been transformed into dynamic international competitors.

Yet in Canada, we remain inert, seemingly helpless to do anything but watch as Canada Post grinds slowly and expensively to a halt. And as ever, the obstacle remains the “universal” service mandate. Private competitors, it is asserted with utter conviction, would refuse to serve the countryside. They’d undercut Canada Post on urban routes, leaving the post office with the costlier rural routes.

That would certainly be true — if the private carriers were obliged, as Canada Post is now, to charge the same price for a letter anywhere in the country, no matter where it goes or how much it costs to get it there. But this is an absurd restriction, required of no other good or service, public or private. We do not pay the same for a phone call, regardless of duration, distance or time of day. Neither is it expected that the price of a house should be the same in the country as it is in the city. Why should it be so for a letter? Why has it been so?

Because it was useful. Politicians liked it, because it allowed them to subsidize rural consituents out of the prices paid by those in the cities. And the post office liked it, because it helped sustain the case for monopoly. But what was previously merely inefficient and unjust is now intolerable. The “exclusive privilege” has got to go, which means so must the uniform postage rate, and the rest of the logic of monopoly.

The issue, in short, that ought to concern us is not what becomes of Canada Post, but what is the best alternative for the people it serves; not whether Canada Post pulls out of the mail delivery business, but whether others are allowed to get in. Or will we continue to protect it from competition on a service it refuses to provide?

We’ve known for a while that we are all going to have to pay to dig Canada Post out of a financial hole that is expected to see it record an operating loss of $1-billion a year by 2020.

But, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, Wednesday was the day we discovered the exact length, width and depth of the shaft.

The price of stamp booklets is going to rise by one third from next March 31. In exchange, we will get less service, as door-to-door delivery is phased out over five years and replaced with community mailboxes.

There’s a question on WikiAnswers that wonders whether a monopoly can lose money, despite being a price-setter facing zero competition.

Canada Post is the answer to that question, losing $130-million in the third quarter of this year alone. Bloated and inefficient, with a union, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, that is actively “working to defeat capitalist globalization” (according to its constitution), it is no surprise that drastic action is required.

The problem is that the action proposed Wednesday is not drastic enough. The structure of the Canada Post business model will not change and it will still not face any competition in the declining part of the business it calls Lettermail (that’s mail to the rest of us but eliding the words gives it that modern feel of style over substance).

If it’s now going to cost $1 for a single stamp (from 63¢), why not also open up the market to see if any of the recently privatized international mail companies can provide that service more cheaply? Why not allow other providers the chance to charge variable postage rates, depending on mailing distances, rather than oblige people to pay a uniform rate?

In short, if we’re going to pay more, why not see if we can also get better service?

The “five point action plan” unveiled Wednesday gives us the worst of all worlds. The only saving grace is the possibility that the cash hemorrhaging from Canada Post may be stemmed. The community mailbox plan is expected to save $500-million a year, while staffing reductions of 6,000 to 8,000 (mostly achieved by attrition) will further add to savings. A plan to open more franchise postal outlets in stores across the country sounds very much like a blueprint to close standalone offices as “Canada Post continues to align its corporate post offices to customer traffic patterns.”

But the $700-million to $900-million in annual savings are years away and may amount to little more than wishful thinking.

The CUPW is up in arms and promises to fight the changes. Its members — certainly those in line for a Canada Post pension — may suggest they don’t fight too hard. The pension fund is $5.9-billion under water and Canada Post has not been able to afford contributions to satisfy its obligations under existing legislation. The government has now given the corporation temporary pension relief, including from the need to make solvency payments estimated at $1-billion in 2014 alone. This is good news because without it, Canada Post would have run out of cash by next Easter. But that pension shortfall needs to be made good at some point — and the only way (other than a taxpayer bailout) is for the corporation’s operating performance to improve.

The question remains — is all this merely kicking the can down the road? A Conference Board study looking at ways to move Canada Post back into the black suggested a range of other cost-cutting measures, including alternate day delivery for mail. It would be no surprise to see this as the next temporary fix.

The longer term solution is more competition. It has worked elsewhere — Britain’s Royal Mail was partially privatized earlier this year and shares rose 35% on the first day, such was the public appetite (clearly it was under-priced in the first place).

Similarly, Belgium’s postal service returned to profitability after privatization in 2006 and there have been improvements in productivity and profitability at the now privatized Austria Post and Deutsche Post.

Total volumes are down but parcel volumes are up because of the online shopping boom. A more competitive Canada Post, with access to private capital, would be a formidable opponent for the parcel giants like FedEx.

By announcing the changes the day after Parliament rose, the government likely avoided the worst of any potential backlash – the Opposition is so fixated on its other scandals and shortcomings, this one is not likely to survive until the House of Commons returns.

But the problem of what to do about a loss-making state-owned postal service in the digital age has not been addressed.

Instead, band-aids have been applied when more radical surgery was required.